Related papers: Supercongruences for central trinomial coefficient…

The Ap\'ery polynomials are given by $$A_n(x)=\sum_{k=0}^n\binom nk^2\binom{n+k}k^2x^k\ \ (n=0,1,2,\ldots).$$ (Those $A_n=A_n(1)$ are Ap\'ery numbers.) Let $p$ be an odd prime. We show that…

Let $p>3$ be a prime, and let $a$ be a rational p-adic integer. Let $\{B_n(x)\}$ and $\{E_n(x)\}$ denote the Bernoulli polynomials and Euler polynomials, respectively. In this paper we show that $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}\binom…

We show that any central simple algebra of exponent $p$ in prime characteristic $p$ that is split by a $p$-extension of degree $p^n$ is Brauer equivalent to a tensor product of $2\cdot p^{n-1}-1$ cyclic algebras of degree $p$. If $p=2$ and…

A famous conjecture of Parkin-Shanks predicts that $p(n)$ is odd with density $1/2$. Despite the remarkable amount of work of the last several decades, however, even showing this density is positive seems out of reach. In a 2018 paper with…

Intersective polynomials are polynomials in $\Z[x]$ having roots every modulus. For example, $P_1(n)=n^2$ and $P_2(n)=n^2-1$ are intersective polynomials, but $P_3(n)=n^2+1$ is not. The purpose of this note is to deduce, using results of…

A "practical number" is a positive integer $n$ such that every positive integer less than $n$ can be written as a sum of distinct divisors of $n$. We prove that most of the binomial coefficients are practical numbers. Precisely, letting…

A modified totient function ($\phi_2$) is seen to play a significant role in the study of the twin prime distribution. The function is defined as $\phi_2(n):=\#\{a\le n ~\vert ~\textrm{$a(a+2)$ is coprime to $n$}\}$ and is shown here to…

We give a simple matrix-based proof of congruence equations modulo a prime $p$ involving sums of binomial coefficients appearing in Pascal's triangle. These equations can be used to construct some groups of exponent $p^n$. These groups, as…

The expression $a^n + b^n$ can be factored as $(a+b)(a^{n-1} - a^{n-2} b + a^{n-3} b^2 - ... + b^{n-1})$ when $n$ is an odd integer greater than one. This paper focuses on proving a few properties of the longer factor above, which we call…

In this paper, we introduce the power-partible reduction for holonomic (or, P-recursive) sequences and apply it to obtain a series of congruences for Ap\'ery numbers $A_k$. In particular, we prove that, for any $r\in\mathbb{N}$, there…

We establish a novel connection between the central binomial coefficients $\binom{2n}{n}$ and Gould's sequence through the construction of a specialized multivariate polynomial quotient ring. Our ring structure is characterized by ideals…

We give a formula for the density of $0$ in the sequence of generalized Motzkin numbers, $M^{a, b}_n$, modulo a prime, $p$, in terms of the first $p$ generalized central trinomial coefficients $T^{a, b}_n\bmod p$ (with $n<p$). We apply our…

Let m_1,...,m_s be positive integers. Consider the sequence defined by multinomial coefficients: a_n=\binom{(m_1+m_2+... +m_s)n}{m_1 n, m_2 n,..., m_s n}. Fix a positive integer k\ge 2. We show that there exists a positive integer C(k) such…

Given a prime number $p$, the study of divisibility properties of a sequence $c(n)$ has two contending approaches: $p$-adic valuations and superconcongruences. The former searches for the highest power of $p$ dividing $c(n)$, for each $n$;…

Given a prime $p\geq 5$, we reduce modulo p a convolution of order p-1 of powers of two weighted Bernoulli numbers with Bernoulli numbers in terms of harmonic numbers and generalized harmonic numbers. Our proof is based on studying the…

Let $m>2$ and $q>0$ be integers with $m$ even or $q$ odd. We show the supercongruence $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}(-1)^{km}\binom{p/m-q}{k}^m\equiv0\pmod{p^3}.$$ for any prime $p>mq$. This confirms a conjecture of Sun.

Much is known about binomial coefficients where primes are concerned, but considerably less is known regarding prime powers and composites. This paper provides two conjectures in these directions, one about counting binomial coefficients…

For $n=1,2,3,\ldots$ let $S_n$ be the sum of the first $n$ primes. We mainly show that the sequence $a_n=\root n\of{S_n/n}\ (n=1,2,3,\ldots)$ is strictly decreasing, and moreover the sequence $a_{n+1}/a_n\ (n=10,11,\ldots)$ is strictly…

The partial Stirling numbers T_n(k) used here are defined as the sum over odd values of i of (n choose i) i^k. Their 2-exponents nu(T_n(k)) are important in algebraic topology. We provide many specific results, applying to all values of n,…

Given any positive integer $n,$ let $A(n)$ denote the height of the $n^{\text{th}}$ cyclotomic polynomial, that is its maximum coefficient in absolute value. It is well known that $A(n)$ is unbounded. We conjecture that every natural number…